Jimny in the snow and ice.

sixmile wrote:

So when you're driving on snow or ice you all keep it in 2wd until you get to a patch where you start slipping or a climb where you can't manage without 4wd then turn it off again?

I would say no, although it will come down to experience and driver ability.

The issue with the Jimny is, it has no centre differential. So you can only use 4wd on slippery or lose surfaces. Therefore if there are patches or sections of tarmac with no snow or ice on, you shouldn't really be running in 4wd on those.

If the road is completely covered in snow, there is little point trying to make do in 2wd, as when you get stuck, you might be too stuck to get out even with 4wd. And using 4wd might have prevented you getting stuck at all.

Also in slippery conditions 4wd will give you far more cornering and braking control over 2wd.

4wd will allow far more engine braking, it will also change your braking bias to 50:50 front-rear, instead of the 70:30 you'd normally get in 2wd. All of these things will help you slow down better and in more control.

4wd will also help you change and set the yaw angle on corners, allowing safer and better cornering control too.

for me, speed is one of the main factors to decide between 4wd or 2wd. Going above 40- 60 kmt on compatcted snow and ice there is no point in the 4x4 and I will rather keep the brake bias in 2wd.
More easy to go sideways when braking in 4x4 at speed.

But i am guessing driving around in speeds of 80-100kmt on ice and snow is not so very relevant in here as most people have all terrains. To some this must sound a bit crazy but here we drive around like that all winter

Edit. Going way too fast on ice is common here and everyone has years of experience with it. But not in any way recommended!

Also the snow type can make a difference. For most of the UK compacted and iced snow is more of a rarity. As we just don't have snow for long enough, we also never get snow on snow really, bar a few exceptions.

Where I am in the UK we also tend to get 2 different types of snow. On rare occasions it comes down from the north and is usually very dry snow, with smaller flakes. It doesn't stick together and doesn't make snowballs and is no good for building snowmen or sledging. This snow tends to drift more, but at times can be like driving in polystyrene balls and will waft about when you drive through it. Grip levels are usually very good in these conditions.

The most common snow I see, which is still reasonably rare, it can go a few years between really getting any. Is when a band of cold air comes down from the North (rather than snow from the North) and hits a warm band of rain that has come up from France. This produces very wet snow, much larger snowflakes, is great for snowballs and sledging, but is super slippery by comparison. This may well land and settle on wet ground, but usually only lasts 24-48 hrs on the ground, sometimes less. And as a single snowfall.

Most of the driving done in this snow is on freshly fallen snow. It isn't frosted, iced, compacted or having an ice layer underneath. But is slick. Despite what many tests say, I've found most mud terrains to perform better than most all terrains in this kind of snow. Probably because it is soft and fresh and wetter.

Running at high speed in the snow is not really an occurrence in the UK, as the snow is soon gone and never gets to a highly compacted state to allow for higher speeds. Proper winter tyres are of course great, but in 4-6 inches of this fresh snow, I'm not always convinced they have such a big margin of capability as they do when testing on Nordic test tracks and the like.

Example from 2017:


The snow you see had fallen in the last hour and half, prior to that there was no snow at all. And most of the snow was gone 2 days later.

I'm in the vehicle in front (it was a leaf sprung 1978 Series Land Rover on some remould, aggressive 7.00 x 16 mud terrains and it felt unstoppable in these conditions). My brother is in the camera vehicle, which is a Land Rover 90, also on mud terrains.

4WD is very rarely necessary on UK roads, and not as important as tyres with a 3PMSF label: in snow, a FWD car with winter tyres or even all-seasons will eat a 4WD car on summer tyres for breakfast. 

But on those rare occasions that you need 4WD, you're glad it's there.

sixmile wrote:

So when you're driving on snow or ice you all keep it in 2wd until you get to a patch where you start slipping or a
climb where you can't manage without 4wd then turn it off again?
 

Pretty much, yes.

Don't engage 4WD with a wheel spinning or with the steering turned when moving though, or you will break the dog teeth off the transfer box.

Press the clutch while you change, or in an auto stop all 4 wheels with the brake, or knock it into neutral.

It says on the sunvisor that you can engage 4WD at ridiculous speeds- upto 60MPH!  You can, but it will increase the wear on the syncho in the transfer box if you still have the vacuum hubs.

Yes you can engage 4x4 at speed but there is no need in my opinion as I sad earlier. To unselect 4x4 is more useful.
I had some difficulty to engage 4x4 today in the cold but not sure why yet. No flashing error message as in a vacuum problem, thinking it might be the actuator as it is not cold enough for the vacuum to freeze up from water ingress.

Changing weather and all types of snow and all the weather is why all my cars have 4x4. Swift, VW T5 and Jimny. 
Oh by the way, All Suzukis of all models is a 4x4 here. I am having difficulty buying driveshaft U-joints for the Swift as almost no other EU country got those so the rear joints are hard to get.
I get them from breakers as many cars end up in the ditch during winter so, used car parts are plentyful. 

As 300bhpton said on the rare occasion you get dry snow is maybe when the north atlantic oscillation turns and flips around and the low pressure systems forming between greenland and iceland go south to the UK instead of going east to my coast during winter.
When it flips on the rare occasion we sometimes get siberia cold weather coming from the east and down to minus 20 but very rare here on the coast. 
We just had a few of those Polar low pressure cold fronts from the west blow past us now with floods and mud slides and snow and freeze and thaw every other day or so.

One week ago I had my snowblower out to clear 50cm of snow, then last weekend 12-15 degrees and heavy rain and it all went away. And yesterday it was -1 again and today 5cm of snow. 
A few miles inland from here in a valley they got 18.7 degrees on Sunday wich is a new record high winter temperature.

Mild weather got me out in the garage to swap my transfer case on Sunday so OK by me.
 

When we had snow , the other week , I locked my wheels into 4wd ( hubs) and went in and out of 2wd, 4wd on the straight roads , between roundabaouts, no issues at all

LM42 wrote:

When we had snow , the other week , I locked my wheels into 4wd ( hubs) and went in and out of 2wd, 4wd on the straight roads , between roundabaouts, no issues at all
 

You absolutely can, as long as there is no speed difference between front & rear axles. You can do it with the vacuum hubs too, they just click in when the axle is rotating.


Having permanently locked hubs is kinder to the transfer synchro too, as it doesn't have to accelerate the propshaft and axle from standstill upto road speed.

 

yakuza wrote:

Yes you can engage 4x4 at speed but there is no need in my opinion as I sad earlier. To unselect 4x4 is more useful.

 

That was the problem with Series LandRovers, you could engage the front axle by pressing the yellow knob down, but to get it back into 2WD you had to stop and pull the red lever back into neutral*.

The axles were stronger and the bar tread tyres much slipper though, so a few hundred road miles in 4WD wouldn't hurt!

For all its other faults (and amazingly worse build quality than LandRover) at least the Jeep Jeep had 2WD-4WDH-4WDL on the transfer lever.

(*You could pull it back into neutral when going along but you needed to be an expert at matching engine speed to road speed to get it to push forward into drive again....)